


Undertow

by Iben



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 02:52:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4812197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iben/pseuds/Iben
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tommy is a man who compartmentalizes, but the world is more complex than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Undertow

Lights in different colors flashed and undulated over the walls and the throng of people moving on the dance floor. The air was thick, filled with the sweet scent of alcohol and warm bodies. Tommy was skulking at the bar, although he wouldn't have used the word skulk. He didn't want to dance. He didn't like to dance. He took another swig from his beer bottle. 

He hated this place. He hated how the pants and t-shirt he wore somehow made him feel dressed up as someone else, even though they were his own clothes. This was dressing-down, for him. The music was so loud it pressed not only against his ears, but against his skin. He watched the dancers, saw asses and hips and bulges. 

This was his first beer, but he had downed a few shots of whiskey at home before heading out. Some liquid courage, perhaps, but it was more about dulling himself, to make himself think less about where he was going and why. He had money to spend on drinks, if he wanted, and he wasn't cheap, but he didn't want to spend it here. 

He hated it here. 

He caught the eye of a man across the bar. The man was staring at him. Tommy held his gaze for a moment. The back of his neck prickled. It was why he was here, to get someone's attention, and Tommy liked the look of this someone. He saw a beard and dark eyes. Something other than the polished, ridiculously tight-clothed youngsters on the dance floor. 

He had another swig of his beer and when he looked back, after a moment of looking at nothing at all, the man was gone. Disappointment and relief, both in equal measure, welled up inside. He could go home, he didn't have to do this. Of course, he'd wake up tomorrow and hate himself and not even have gotten anything for it. 

There was about a third left of his beer and he kept his gaze on it while his mind churned, as if he could somehow figure out the perfect solution if he just thought hard enough. 

“Hello.”

He turned his head and the man was there, right next to him. He leaned against the bar, his gaze fixed on Tommy.

“Hi,” Tommy replied.

He had another swig of his beer to disguise how his stomach made a somersault. The man was broad-shouldered and his shirt was unbuttoned low enough to show a hairy chest, but there was nothing cheesy about it. He was rugged and unkempt in a way that made him look almost, but not quite, incongruous here. 

His gaze was unwavering. 

“Well, enough with the chit-chat,” he said after a few seconds. “You wanna fuck?”

That was probably the bluntest anyone had ever been with Tommy, or at the very least it was the shortest runway leading up to it, including the things Tommy himself had come up with in the past. But it suited him just fine. He didn't want to talk, or flirt, or pretend to be interested in boring bullshit. 

“Yeah,” he said, putting his bottle down on the bar. 

He led the way towards the exit, squeezing past dancing guys. He had to resist the urge to look over his shoulder to check if the man was following him, but as the crowd thinned, closer to the door, he felt a hand on his hip. He turned his head then. 

It was the right guy, so to speak, not someone else. Tommy felt a wave of something, balancing somewhere between excitement and fear. The feeling was familiar; he wanted this and he didn't. 

He didn't like to be fondled in public, but he didn't shake the man's hand off.

“Your place or my place?” the man asked when they'd gotten their coats and went outside. 

There was a slight rasp in his voice. Compared to inside the club the sidewalk felt quiet. 

“Your place,” Tommy said. 

“You've got a car?”

“No.”

Tommy had taken a taxi here. 

“That's all right, I've got car. We can go in my car.”

“Alright.”

There were several clubs on this street and there were people out and about. Smoking, chatting, laughing. Most of them men. 

People offered some sense of security. That vanished when Tommy got into the passenger seat of the man's car. He wasn't an idiot, and yet he did this.

“What's your name?” the man asked him as he turned out onto the street. 

Tommy didn't reply. That earned him a glance, that he returned as calmly as he could. Thoughts of what was going to happen next, when they got to the man's place, made it difficult to remain calm. 

“That's the way it is, huh?” the man said. “Alright.”

He didn't offer his name. Tommy got part of it anyway, it was on his front door – A. Solomons. He lived in an apartment complex in an ordinary, boring part of town. The flat was nothing special, a random selection of furniture, and it was a bit messy, making it looked lived-in. It smelled unfamiliar, of stranger. 

There were clothes and shoes on the floor in the bedroom. Solomons, Tommy figured he could think of him like that, turned to look at him and began unbuttoning his shirt. Tommy pulled his own shirt over his head, then started unbuckling his pants. He was watching, though, as Solomons pulled off his shirt. He was heavily tattooed, just the right amount of hairy, and muscular. Tommy worked out, but this guy was a lot bigger than he was. 

Desire snaked through him, mixed with something else. He had no idea who this guy was and yet here he was, getting undressed to do things with him. 

“I'm all for all sorts of things, but don't pull my hair, yeah? I don't like that,” Solomons said. 

Naked he looked splendid. His erection jutted out, surrounded by a bush of light brown hair, and Tommy was hard too, just in anticipation. 

Solomons walked up to him, it was only a few steps, and kissed him. Just like that. And Tommy kissed him back, despite the shock of suddenly having his beard scraping against his face. His lips were soft, warm. But it wasn't just a kiss. Tommy could feel him, his body right up against his. Want washed over him, not wholly unexpected and in the back of his mind he thought, this is so wrong. 

In bed they progressed to rubbing against each other. Tommy let his hands slide over warm skin and hard muscles, gripped and let his fingers leave marks. Solomons responded in kind. The smell of his skin, his warm breath, his body, it was all masculine, and it was such a turn on. His mouth, his tongue against Tommy's chest. Tommy wanted to feel disgusted, but it felt great. Glancing down he could see Solomons' erection, straining up towards his stomach now. Solomons wrapped his hand around him then, and that felt more than great. 

Tommy knew he should do the same, but he didn't like touching their dicks. It was too private, too gratuitous. He pushed at him instead, tried to get him to spread his legs, but Solomons pushed back. For a moment it became almost a strange sort of wrestling game. Tommy tried to get his knee in between Solomons' legs.

“That's not what I had in mind,” Solomons said. 

He looked at Tommy and Tommy looked back. 

“As fine as my ass is, you're not having it,” Solomons said. “A bit of tongue down there would be fine, yeah, but I don't want your cock in me.”

Tommy didn't say anything. 

“I guess this is what's called reaching an impasse,” Solomons said after a few seconds. They were naked, in bed, together, and having this conversation. It felt absurd. “Alright, you suck me off, I'll do the same for you, how about that?”

Tommy tried to think, but having a raging hard-on that felt in desperate need of attention, and being interrupted in the heat of things like this made it difficult. He'd let a couple of guys fuck him before, but he preferred doing it the other way around. 

He wanted to come. He didn't want to give Solomons a blow-job. But as he got up on his hands and knees he wondered if he had gone insane. “Okay,” he said.

“Okay?” Solomons said, sounding a bit incredulous. He sat up. “This is a bit weird, isn't it?”

“Do you want to fuck or not?”

“Yeah, I do. Are you sure you want to?”

Tommy saw him reach for the drawer in the bedside table. Then he moved to kneel behind Tommy.

Feeling Solomons' hand there, between his ass-cheeks, felt unexpected, even though it shouldn't have. He wasn't as rough now, as before, but he wasn't overly gentle either. He pushed one finger in, and put his other hand on the small of Tommy's back. 

This, being fingered, was Tommy's least favorite part of doing this. He had other reasons, and they were fairly clear in his mind, the lack of control, the indisputable fact that it was a very homosexual act to let another man fuck you, but this felt so private. 

Solomons added another finger, then a third. There was nothing wrong with the way he was touching Tommy, working him open, except that he was a complete stranger, putting his fingers in Tommy's ass.

Tommy glanced back when Solomons removed his hand, to make sure he put a condom on. Then Solomons pushed the head of his cock in and Tommy felt stretched, thinking maybe he wasn't ready after all, but Solomons kept pushing, sliding in until he bottomed out.

“You alright, love?” he said.

Tommy did not want to be called that. He didn't want to talk at all.

“Yeah,” he said anyway, lest Solomons would think differently and stop. 

He moved slowly at first. Tommy felt filled up – it was a peculiar feeling, satisfying and somewhat demeaning at the same time. It did feel good, though, Solomons sliding in and out of him. His erection had softened when Solomons was getting him ready, but now it returned, and when Solomons quickened the pace real pleasure started weaving through him.

The gentle hand on his back was gone, instead Solomons was firmly gripping his hips. Tommy was taken aback when he suddenly heard laughter behind him. 

“What were you so reluctant for? You seem to really like this,” Solomons said.

Tommy almost hated him then. He felt ashamed of the way he was panting, ashamed about doing this in the first place, having a man inside him and enjoying it. He didn't need it thrown in his face.

Solomons' thrusts were hard and fast and the strength of his hands were wonderfully male. When he reached around and started jerking Tommy off it didn't take long before Tommy came. His orgasm was blinding and he exhaled sharply as it coursed through him, making his muscles clamp down around Solomons' dick.

He didn't have time to catch his breath; Solomons grabbed his shoulder, his other hand holding his hip, and started fucking him with a single-minded intensity. Tommy could feel when the movement of Solomons' hips became erratic and then he leaned forward, grunting when he came. 

Inside me, Tommy thought. It should have been vile, despite the condom, and in a way it was, but in another way Solomons and his hard, hairy body, his deep voice, his arousal, his orgasm, all of it felt fantastic. 

He pulled out, leaving an empty feeling behind.

“That was some fucking,” he said, laying down on his back on the mattress. “You want a cigarette?”

Tommy lay down too, avoiding the wet spot he'd made, just to catch his breath for a second. 

“No.”

He did want a cigarette, but he'd have one in a minute, after he'd left. He wanted to get out of here now. He got up, didn't bother to clean up, but just started pulling his clothes on.

Solomons pulled off the condom and dropped it on the floor.

“That held up,” he said, then his gaze went to Tommy. “You've got a great body. Are you a model?”

“No.”

“Politician?”

Tommy threw a glance at him where he was, sprawled naked on the bed, smoking.

“No.”

“You kind of look like both.”

“I'm neither.” Tommy was done getting dressed. “Bye.”

Solomons calmly met his gaze. 

“Bye.”

Tommy lit a cigarette as soon as he got out on the street. The night air felt crisp and cool, drawing his attention to the sheen of sweat covering his skin. The neighborhood was quiet and dark. He'd have to walk for a bit to get hold of a cab. He could have called for one, at Solomons' place, but he didn't want to stick around any longer than he had to. He'd gotten what he came for. Now he would push all of it far, far into the back of his mind, until the next time that urge came over him and he'd go out and do the same thing all over again.

**

“Hello?”

Tommy looked up from his computer, somewhat surprised when May showed up in the doorway. Then he remembered he'd given her a key.

“Hi.”

She came up to him, leaned down and gave him a kiss. She smelled faintly of a perfume he recognized, she wore it frequently.

It was dark outside the windows and he hadn't turned on very many lamps in here either, most of the light came from the computer screen. May sat down on his knee, her arms around his shoulders. 

“Did you have a good time?” he asked. 

“Yes. It was interesting, and then when it inevitably got boring I did a bit of shopping.” She looked at the computer. “Are you busy?”

“A little bit.”

She ran his fingers through his hair and they felt cool from the outside winter air.

“Are you hungry? I could fix us something to eat, and then when you're done here we can, you know, eat.”

He looked at her. She had dark hair and dark eyes. No one would argue that she was beautiful.

“Yeah, sounds good,” he said.

She smiled and he smiled back. 

“Okay.” She kissed him again and then got up. 

When he was finished with, or rather decided to put aside, his work they had a late dinner, and then they had sex.

He could get it up without much trouble. She got him hard with her hands or mouth and she hadn't commented on the fact that she often needed to do that. He made sure to take the initiative, every now and then, to keep up the appearance that he was interested. Luckily for him she was quite fond of anal and those times he could close his eyes and pretend she was someone else.

He wasn't repulsed by her, it was more like she was nothing, her body dull and blank. It didn't do anything for him. He went through the motions, made her come and then moved inside her until the stimulation made him come too. It had been easier before, with previous girlfriends he'd had. He didn't know exactly why that was, if it was some form of weariness maybe, or if the amount of gay sex he'd had illuminated how boring this really was.

**

He spent some long days at the office, then he and Arthur and some of the guys went out for drinks on Thursday night. The mood was celebratory – the year was coming to an end and it looked as if they would all lift some substantial Christmas bonuses.

“This,” Arthur said, a girl sitting on each side of him and his arms thrown casually around them. “This is living.”

Tommy smiled. He wanted a cigarette, but all public places were smoke free these days. 

“Now shall we go somewhere more private?” Arthur said to the girls. “And you can blow me, and you can blow my brother?”

“Sure.” They were all giggles and smiles. 

“I'm good,” Tommy said. 

“Are you sure?” Arthur looked at him in disbelief. 

Tommy nodded.

“He's got a fiance,” Arthur said and grinned.

“Aw, that's so sweet,” one of the girls said.

Sweet indeed. Tommy had gone with a fair number of girls such as these, when he was out with the boys and he had to, to be one of them, to fit in. He'd struggled to get an erection then, their fake tits and fake tans and fake everything was a distinct turn off. Now May served as the perfect excuse not to.

Arthur got up, no doubt to go someplace where he'd get his dick sucked by both of them. Tommy got up too, but he went home. 

May was at her own place and the apartment was dark and quiet. He got some work done before he went to bed. It was late and he had to get up early tomorrow, but sleep wouldn't come. He was tired, but some nights were like this, whether he was alone in bed or not. 

He lay there thinking about numbers and things they needed to discuss at the next board meeting. He thought about May, about how she was thirty-four years old and he'd have to put a ring on her finger sooner or later. Have a couple of kids maybe. The thought felt alien. Then he jerked off, thinking that it would help him to relax and help him fall asleep. It did, and he dozed off afterwards. 

It felt as if only minutes had passed when his alarm went off. He went through his morning routine in a bit of a zombie state, but on his way to work he stopped and bought a coffee and the lack of sleep didn't feel so prominent when he walked into the office at eight o'clock sharp. 

He left the office a little earlier than usual and met up with May to get a bit of Christmas shopping done. They started in a toy store, looking for things for her nieces and nephews, Ada's son and John's kids. The entire store was filled with plastic crap, in Tommy's opinion.

“I think we should get one of these for Arthur,” May said and took down a plastic sword and shield from a shelf. “I think he'd really like it.”

Tommy smiled. “Yeah, you're probably right.”

They visited a few more shops before they stopped for a burger. May looked out of place there, in her fine woolen coat and the scarf that Tommy had bought her so he knew how much it cost. That was a nice thing about her, actually, how she didn't look down her nose at the idea of standing by a table in a place that smelled of grease and sugar, eating with her fingers. If anything he was the one who was reluctant to do those things, but it felt alright when he was with her. She knew where he came from. He supposed that was a good sign, of something at least. 

When they were done they stuffed their bags in the trunk of Tommy's car and drove out towards the sleepy residential area in the east part of town. The parking lot outside the retirement home was mostly empty. It was quiet and dark, the only light coming from a couple of lampposts, and it was a stark contrast to the rush of the streets downtown.

“I was actually thinking about having it renovated,” May said when they'd gotten out of the car. She was talking about her terrace. “And then I may as well have them put in glass doors... Jesus Christ!”

Tommy felt it when his foot slid on a patch of ice, but it happened so fast. His hands had been in his coat pockets and he couldn't get them up in time. His head connected with the ground with a crack that was so loud it felt like lightning in his skull. He didn't black out, but his vision got blurry for a few seconds, or maybe that was just because it was dark and he was lying face down on the asphalt. 

“Tommy?! Are you alright?” May crouched down next to him. He started to get up. His head felt as if it had exploded. May grabbed his arm and helped pull him to his feet. 

“You're bleeding.” Her brow was furrowed and her expression a bit worried.

Tommy touched his face and felt something warm and wet.

“Can you walk?”

“Yeah, I'm fine.”

The lights in the foyer of the retirement home felt bright and stung his eyes for a moment. Christa, one of the nurses, came out through a door just then and her eyes went wide when she saw them.

“Oh my god, Mr Shelby, what's happened?”

“I slipped and fell, I'm afraid.” He felt foolish, but it actually hurt like hell.

Christa had a closer look at him.

“I think you might need stitches,” she said. 

“Oh, we should get you to a hospital then,” May said.

Tommy didn't want to go to a hospital. They made you wait forever and then sent you home with some aspirin. But he could feel the blood trickling down the side of his face. His coat sleeve was stained.

“We could probably take care of it here, if you want?” Christa said. “We're not supposed to, but we don't have to tell anyone.”

“Okay,” Tommy said.

May didn't say anything, but he could see on the look on her face that she thought he should go to a hospital instead. She almost, but not quite, rolled her eyes.

“Come with me,” Christa said.

They followed her to the home's infirmary. She opened a door to an examination room.

“Have a seat,” she said and handed Tommy a piece of gauze to press against the bleeding. “I was right in the middle of preparing the medicines for the evening, but we'll get you sorted in a minute.”

Tommy took a seat on the examining table when she had left and May sat down in a chair that was placed against the wall. There were no windows and it smelled of disinfectant.

After a moment the door opened and Tommy's heart nearly stopped when he saw the man standing there. It was him. The man he'd slept with just a week ago. Solomons.

Solomons stared back at him for a few seconds, then he stepped inside and pulled the door shut. The room suddenly felt horrendously cramped. Tommy swallowed, trying to think of a way out of there, but couldn't come up with anything.

“Been in a fight?” Solomons said and that slightly raspy voice of his felt like a shock to Tommy's ears. “There's only old people around here, you shouldn't fight them.”

“I fell.”

Tommy was hyper-aware of May sitting right there, and how everything could come crashing down around him if Solomons decided to say something, anything. 

“It was a fight with the pavement,” May said. “They were both terribly brave.”

Solomons smiled briefly at that.

“Let me see,” he said then and turned to Tommy. Tommy lifted the gauze. “Yeah, you need a couple of stitches. Just little ones.”

Don't say anything, don't say anything, Tommy thought. Solomons might, either because he was ignorant or simply to be a dick. Tommy had no way of knowing, he didn't know him, and there was nothing he could do or say to stop him. 

“You do a lot of sutures here?” May asked.

“You'd be surprised,” Solomons replied. 

He was wearing scrubs and a long sleeve white shirt underneath, although the sleeves were pulled up, revealing his muscular arms. The name tag on his shirt read 'Alfie'. That had to be short for Alfred, or something. He put on a pair of gloves then started by wiping some of the blood from Tommy's face.

He had to be a doctor here, or a nurse, but Tommy had never seen him before.

May, having decided that Tommy wasn't going to bleed out and die, took out her phone. Alfie's hands were sure and gentle when he cleaned and then sutured the wound. Tommy tried not to think about what those hands had done to him last Friday. Alfie's face was so close to his he could faintly smell his breath; it was minty. He had incredibly long eye-lashes.

He turned his gaze just then, meeting Tommy's for a moment. His eyes were a myriad of different colors – gray, blue, mostly green. Tommy hadn't seen that in the dimly lit bedroom. 

Tommy had no idea what he was thinking. He didn't care, as long as Alfie didn't expose him, and he was fairly certain he wouldn't. He would have done so already if he wanted to. Tommy just wanted to get this the hell done and get out of here.

“There, you're done,” Alfie said. “As good as new. Almost.”

May put her phone back in her coat pocket and stood up. She looked at Tommy's eyebrow, then she turned to Alfie.

“Thank you,” she said. 

Alfie had taken the gloves off and when May extended her hand he shook it. It was all a horrible travesty. Tommy had to shake his hand too, there was no way around it. He tried to keep his mind blank, but of course he failed. Alfie's hand was warm, his palm dry. 

“What do I owe?” Tommy asked as they stepped out into the corridor.

“Oh, I did you for free,” Alfie replied.

He probably couldn't resist it. He looked at Tommy.

“Alright, take care, don't get into any more fights.” He turned around and left. 

There was a visitors' bathroom and Tommy went in there, under the pretense that he had to clean up. He gripped the sink and closed his eyes. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. The tension he'd locked up came oozing out. 

He hadn't been outed. He repeated that to himself, trying to get a grip. But it wasn't just that. It was the simple fact of seeing Solomons, _Alfie_ , here, outside the club, outside the carefully constructed bubble of their encounter. Seeing him at his fucking job where he had a profession, co-workers, a first name, where he was a human being. It made it all so real. 

Tommy looked at his reflection in the mirror above the washbowl. He didn't lie to himself, that was the one thing he didn't do. He knew what he was, he was gay, didn't mean he had to like it.

He washed off the remaining blood from his face and hands. The collar of his shirt was stained and he wasn't sure if the coat could be saved by the magicians at his dry-cleaners. It didn't matter. 

May inspected his eyebrow when he came out from the bathroom again.

“It looks good,” she said.

“Are you an expert on sutures now?”

“I am, as a matter of fact. I fell off swings and horses and all kinds of things when I was a child. I've had my fair share.”

They had come here to visit Aunt Polly and somehow Tommy got through that. Polly was a bit confused today and they didn't stay long. Tommy wanted to go home, he wanted to be alone. Most of all he never, ever wanted to see Alfie Solomons again.


End file.
